


Sarja

by kittybenzedrine



Series: Timelines [32]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bisexual Female Character, Domestic Violence, F/F, Mentioned Infidelity, Non-Explicit Sex, Regicide, Running Away, Temporary Character Death, mentioned miscarriage, minor homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:09:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: After Leo has hit her one too many times, Ren finally leaves him. It's not easy, but she gets away. While out on her own, Ren meets a woman named Sarja and falls for her, hard and fast. The two of them have something wonderful.Leo isn't ready to let Ren go, though, and isn't happy to find his wife with another woman.After Ren's unfortunate and forceful parting with Sarja at Leo's hands, she gets away from him again and finally kills a fucking king. Once all of her affairs are in order, Ren goes back to the place where she last saw the woman she'd grown to love._____All pieces of the Timelines series are standalones and can be read without context.





	Sarja

**Author's Note:**

> Little bit of graphic abuse at the beginning. If you're not comfortable with that, you probably want to turn back now. Leo's just an all-around cunt in this, and I don't use that word lightly. He's very rough and handsy whenever he shows up, so yeah. Beware.

Ren doesn't recognize Leo anymore. She never would have described him as a kind man, but she certainly never would have thought he could be this, this twisted mockery of a thing that used to be her husband. This... Creature. A temper shorter than her own, when his fuse used to be a mile long. Unkind to her, even when she makes an effort to be pleasant. He raises his voice at her. Not to mention he's put his hands on her.

Leo has hit her before. She deserved it then, as it was either a last attempt to break her out of hysterics, or as a distraction method to subdue her during the worst of her meltdowns. She was willing to take that. But he grabs her by the jaw now, shoves her and gets in her face.

They haven't had sex in over a year. She has no desire for him anymore, doesn't want to be touched by a man who can't touch her kindly. While she misses intimacy, misses sex, she'll only share those things with humans. Leo's not a human to her anymore. He's a goddamn monster.

Leo gets frustrated come evening when she turns down his sexual offers for the thousandth time. He's faster than her, blocks the door when she tries to go sleep in another room. Snarling, he asks her what the hell her problem is. Shoves her back when she tries to push past him. It goes downhill from there. Argument erupts.

Eventually, Ren spits the truth. She tells him that she doesn't love him, and hasn't for a long time. That isn't what he wants to hear, apparently. She's barely gotten out the first word to a second sentence when she sees white in her right eye and a force nearly knocks her down. The pain of his hand connecting to her right cheek catches up a few seconds later, but time has already seemed to stop by then. She staggers, but remains upright. Her jaw _hurts_ , and she can already feel her face and eye beginning to swell.

Leo draws in a deep breath, all anger seemingly gone from him. He merely says "I apologize," on the exhale, and leaves her alone in their chambers. Ren stands in place, cradling her face while involuntary tears begin to spill. Her vision blurs in her left eye, while sight starts to come back to the right one.

Out of shock, mostly, she sits on the edge of the bed and cries. Leo's a scary man, but _she's_ never been scared of him before. Even after all the times she's watched him brutally murder others, after all the things she's seen his hands do, she's never been frightened of what those hands could do to her. Until he proved it.

She packs light while he's still gone. A few dresses, some sentimental items. Their handfasting ribbon, the blanket she swaddled her stillborm son in. A necklace that belonged to his dead wife, that Ren claimed as her own in secret. She takes that mostly out of pettiness 

Fuck this. She isn't going to be some battered wife, cowering into submission, letting him fuck her because she's too scared to say no. She was a goddamn warlord, held in just as high of a regard as him. Just as respected, just as feared. There's no way in hell she's going to let her life be like this. With her face bruised and eye swollen shut, sword at her hip, Ren leaves in the dead of night and leaves no trace of herself.

 

 

She goes to the part of the continent he came from, because he tends to avoid it. It's too cold, too densely populated, and it reminds him of being a starving child on the streets. It's usually too cold for her as well, but it's summertime and the sun warms everything it touches. The town she ends up in is one of the many on the outskirts of the city Leo came from, and he won't think her stupid enough to go somewhere he's completely familiar with. She should be safe here, for a while at least.

Ren's been gone for months now, and she hasn't caught any wind of him looking for her. Yet. It's only a matter of time. Leo's possessive of things that are "his", and Ren probably still falls into that category. Being "his" used to be an endearing thing, made her feel safe, but now it just makes her feel sick.

She's got very little to her name. Her clothes, the blanket, the necklace, her sword. Her horse is a given. Plenty of coin, that's for sure. But she's been in much worse positions with far less, and the only real danger here that she can think of are bears. She can kill anyone who tries to rob her, easily.

The folk of the little village are kind enough, if a little standoffish towards Ren for being a newcomer. Most of them speak the common tongue at least, otherwise she'd be in trouble. She picked up enough of the area's native language from Leo to communicate basic things, but basic is the key word. 

Ren gets some lunch while she makes herself familiar with the area. It's much bigger than the village she comes from, far more densely populated. The kids are loud, shopkeepers eager to peddle their goods. The stray cats are friendly, and that's a nice little selling point for Ren that this is where she should settle for now. She's particularly fond of cats.

It takes a little while, but she finds the tavern. It's... not the greatest she's ever seen. But the barkeep is nice enough. He tells her they've got rooms for rent, supper always ready and hot by evening, and all the alcohol a lady could ever want. To be polite, she has a drink before leaving, though she regrets it. There's bugs everywhere which includes the bottom of her mug. Escaping outside is bliss. Ren fights off the urge to vomit up the ale as she wanders.

There's a stone cabin in the woods, an hour's walk from town. Let than half that by horse. Ren doesn't know what's drawn her here to it, but she leaves her horse at the rotting stable out back and goes around to the front door. If it's inhabited, she might ask to board here for the night. If it's not, she has no problem moving in to make it her own.

A woman answers the door, which squeals on its hinges. Ren can tell right off that the woman isn't human. She's got the ethereal beauty of one species, and when she opens up her mouth to ask " _Da?_ ", her teeth are sharp and overcrowd her mouth like the kind of nonhuman Leo is. Ren doesn't typically trust nonhumans, but this women is... She's gorgeous.

"Do you speak the common tongue?" Ren asks, politely keeping her eyes on the woman's face. Another detail; the woman is unapologetically stark naked.

" _No, but I understand_ ," she replies in the language native to the area, and Ren has to take a moment to translate. She knows the language pretty alright, but she's not familiar with the particular dialect.

Ren nods. "Are you willing to put me up for the night? I've the coin to pay you."

The woman looks confused for a moment, until the words click. She opens the door just a little wider and shuffled to the side to show off the interior. " _I have only one bed._ " she says as a way of explaining, but it doesn't sound like a "no" to Ren.

"I've slept in worse conditions." Ren crosses her arms, then uncrosses them and puts her hands in her dress pockets. The house is tiny, crowded with furniture, and the bed looks like it'll be a tight squeeze for two. She really doesn't want to sleep in that bug infested tavern in town though.

Hesitance is clear on the woman's face. A perfect stranger standing in her door, asking to share her bed for the evening. A stranger that is visibly armed, with a face like thunder and an old, poorly healed burn scar marring half of her face. A stranger who could accurately be called a bigot to nonhumans.

The woman opens the door enough for Ren to enter, and calls herself Sarja.

 

 

Sarja catches Ren staring after the sun has gone down, with three oil lamps being only thing illuminating the small home. It's all admiration, of course. Sarja's small and slender, with a soft stomach and thick thighs. Long, glossy black hair that spills down her back. Earth colored skin that glows bronze in the light. Ren isn't blind, and not a prude either. She's at least a little more covert in staring at Sarja's small, perky breasts, her ass that's large enough that it doesn't look like it should belong on such a small body.

" _Are there problems with my nakedness?_ " Sarja asks, looking at Ren like she's daring her to say something.

Ren hesitates, but eventually speaks. Hopefully this won't get her kicked out. "There are much worse things that I could be looking at right now, I assure you."

Sarja makes a face as she mentally translates. It takes a long moment for her to realize what Ren said isn't an insult, and her brows come together. " _You... You enjoy women_?"

The translation is easy enough. Ren knows exactly what Sarja means by "enjoy". She crosses her arms in such a way that pushes up her breasts, and doesn't fail to see the way Sarja steals a glance.

"Yes."

Sarja looks her up and down, slow, and the intensity of the look cuts though Ren like a knife. There's a few long moments of silence before anything else is said. Sarja doesn't ask, she _demands_ that Ren take her dress off, and for once Ren doesn't have a problem with being given orders.

Sharing a bed ends up being a much more pleasant experience then either thought it would be. A surprise, but pleasant. Ren's so desperate for a release that Sarja has just barely touched her and she's already shuddering, moaning low. It's been so long, too long. The mouth between her thighs brings her off over and over, until she's practically sobbing from the rush of pleasure.

When Sarja eventually comes up for a kiss, Ren grabs her by the shoulders. She looks startled at the surge of strength that flattens her to the bed, but has no complains when Ren slides down and returns the favor with plenty of vigor. Sarja merely tells her that she wants no penetration, but that's fine. Ren's not that fond of fingers either.

She teases Ren in the afterglow, tells her that her bedsheet white skin has so many colors to it. Like a rainbow. Silver stretch marks, pink scars, yellow-purple-blue bruises from being in a saddle for so long. Ren normally doesn't tolerate being teased for being so pale, but she lets it slide. The other woman is fascinated by how fucking pale Ren is. Her palms linger on the silvery stretch marks given to Ren by the children she's given away, but doesn't ask about it. 

Sarja doesn't accept payment for sharing her bed, but when Ren comes back the next evening with an offering of meat from the butcher and a fresh loaf of bread, Sarja opens her door back up. By the end of a week, Ren no longer has to ask to stay. She finds great amusement coming back every evening to a naked woman waiting on her with dinner. Isn't this what husbands want?

The only payment she can get Sarja to take is in the form of taking care of her. Of course, Ren's got no problem spending an hour between Sarja's thighs until there's a small puddle on the bed. But there are other ways of taking care of her. Ren was brought up thinking she was going to be a housewife in her younger years, and so it's nothing but habit to help Sarja keep the little one room cabin clean. She takes care of the little vegetable garden. She shops at the market so that Sarja doesn't have to put clothes on, let alone go out.

(She finds out why Sarja prefers to be naked, why she hates clothes. Sarja can't stand the feeling of most fabric. It makes her feel awful, comparable to being covered in filth. No amount of washing after putting on clothing makes her feel clean. Sleeping under a blanket is torture, so she uses animal fur instead. Ren makes a mental note to commission a silk gown for her, to see if she can handle the texture of that.)

It's not like Ren to fall in love so fast. Her first love as a young teenager doesn't count, as children are prone to falling hard and quick. Most of people she'd felt any sort of romantic inclination for, the flame had burnt out almost as soon as it had ignited. Hell, it took her _months_ to warm up to Leo, and just as long for her to realize she wasn't just infatuated with this attractive man who knew how to use that big cock of his, no, she actually had feelings for him.

But it's different with Sarja.

It's like they were meant to be. Like fate, or gods that Ren doesn't believe in, made it so that their paths would cross. It's easy to fall into a rhythm with her. It's easy living. After only a month, Ren absolutely sure this is where she wants to be for a good, long while.

Ren works into a new habit. She makes breakfast, goes town to do odd jobs, comes home in the evening for dinner. She's always exhausted, but they manage to find time for each other while the food is making. Doing odd jobs around the town keeps her supply of coin from dwindling, at least.

Living with her is easy. Loving her is easier. Ren laments to Sarja one night that she hates Leo for a different reason now. Because of him, she can't go home and see her family, lest he catch wind and force her back to his home. She wants to introduce her to the family. Her niece and nephews would like Sarja.

Sarja knows about Leo. Ren's never hidden him from her. He was a man she used to love dearly, until things went sour. She spent half of her life at his side, loved him until the only spark of heat began the two of them was her hatred. Sarja knows the risk of harboring Ren while she's hiding from a possessive, abusive husband. One who isn't afraid to murder someone in cold blood just to get what he wants.

With Sarja, it's easy to get her mind off of him. Her hands only touch Ren kindly, insults only thrown through a mouth that's smiling. Ren doesn't flinch anymore when she sees a hand reaching for her. Even though Sarja and Leo have the same mother tongue, the dialect she speaks is just different enough that Ren doesn't cringe when she hears Sarja bark angry words out when she burns herself at the stove.

The people of the town catch on to the relationship pretty quick, though the women are never seen together. Shop owners try to justify not letting Ren work for them by saying that lesbians aren't right (they don't use the word "lesbians" though, they use much more crude insults) and that they don't want that kind of vulgarity here. 

Ren makes a point that she's not having sex with Sarja out in the town square for everyone to see. She's not marching through town, beating on a drum and screaming that she likes to perform cunnilingus. She's not trying to have mass orgies with their wives and daughters. She's trying to earn some coin, just the same as everyone else. Its not like she can't do work suddenly because they found out she likes to fuck women too. Her hands can do the same job they did yesterday before they knew. They were just fine with Ren before they found out that she loves a woman, weren't they? And reluctantly, the townfolk agree, because she has a point.

It just sucks that she can't pull the rank card anymore. She has to keep a lower profile, and telling them that she's the warlord Renegade won't be too helpful if Leo shows up on her trail. Pulling rank would make things so easy, but so difficult at the same time.

(Sarja laughs when she finds out that Renegade is the title that other common folk have given Ren. She points out, while wrapping herself in an animal fur blanket, that Ren could be short for Renegade or her given name of Renee. Ren knows this, but she smiles anyways.)

It dawns on Ren one day that the adjustment has been easy. Going back to the life of a peasant was painless, considering she used to be both a warlord and a baron's wife. Every meal used to be planned and served to her, now she's cooking for herself again. Laundry done for her on the daily, fresh sheets fitted to hers and Leo's bed which was big enough for seven people. Now she sleeps in a bed barely big enough for two and has to scrub her own blankets.

It's pretty fucking nice.

Seven months pass from the day she showed up at Sarja's door. There's no signs of Leo, and the cold blows in hard and without mercy. They're snowed in for weeks, and it's frankly cold and miserable. Supplies run a little low, but things work out. Ren really isn't accustomed to such frigid temperatures, she's from a warmer part of the continent, but she bundles up in bed with Sarja and it's just a little more okay.

 

 

Spring comes, finally.

The snow melts, and after the last killing frost, the two get to work in the garden. This climate is different than what she grew up in, and the plants aren't quite the same, but she grew up on a farm so she gets the basics on how to coax the plants to life and keep them healthy. If only there were more area to plant crops. Ren could make a killing selling fruits and veggies at the market, but there's simply not enough room to plant that much. Plus, her horse is an asshole and likely to wander over and eat the garden if it's too big.

When Ren's not working or gardening, she's out replenishing their stocks of firewood. Chopping is repetitive and strenuous. The first couple of weeks are hell, making her entire body ache something fierce. Her back hurts, her arms burn, and her core hasn't ever had this kind of workout. She loses weight from all the exercise. In all her 200 some-odd years, Ren has never _lost_ weight before. She can gain it easy, she's got plenty of body fat padding her breasts, belly, thighs, and ass. It's a miracle that she drops any weight at all. But her stomach shrinks, her arms get thicker, face a little thinner. The only downside is how much the skin on her belly sags when fat turns to muscle, the skin stretched out too many times by too many babies. But Sarja likes it. Thinks Ren's flabby belly is cute.

Sarja eventually asks. Why Ren's belly has the evidence of children, but none with her. Did she leave them with her monster of a husband? Are they old enough to be on their own? And Ren gets to admit that six of the seven children she's given birth to were products of her infidelity.

She explains that Leo was frequently gone for months at a time, never took her with him while he was away doing his contacted mercenary work. She got lonely, after so many years of so little touch. It doesn't excuse what she did, but it's the explanation. The lack of touch, lack of closeness to him drove her to others who could give her a taste of what she needed. And men are fickle creatures who don't listen, and many of them refused to pull out at her request. That's where six of her children came from.

Those six were given away. They still live under Leo's roof, raised by his servants because Ren didn't trust him to not kill her children for coming from his wife, but having none of his genes. Her babies are safe as adults, at least. Leo's fond of them.

Sarja asks about the other one, the one Ren hasn't mentioned. Ren smiles, but it's a sad smile. She gestures towards the chest of drawers that holds the little white blanket, just big enough for a newborn. It's been many long years since, but it still makes her chest ache to talk about her second son.

The only child of Leo's that she managed to successfully carry, if it could be called successful. If there was one thing she'd always wanted, it was a family with him. She had never wanted children, but she wanted them with _him_. Every time she got pregnant by him, she miscarried before she even knew it was there. She didn't tell him about being pregnant with her son, because she can't keep her legs closed and she though it was impossible to have his children. 

Ren starts tearing up as she goes on. The time came, she felt the baby moving just that morning. When he was born with all of Leo's features and no heartbeat, it nearly killed her. She's got more magic than just enhanced strength, Ren explains. She's got healing magic too. Ren had though to try to revive him. But she had just given birth, and had so little energy. She'd never tried to revive anyone before either. If she wasn't so sure it would have killed her in the process, she would have tried to revive her son. Instead, she bathed him, laid with him until he grew stiff, and then buried him in the rose garden.

"But things will be different with you" Ren tells her, wiping the wetness from her eyes. "No children, no infidelity. Just me, you, and the horse."

The addition of the horse in such a somber moment makes Sarja laugh.

 

 

The apple trees out front of Sarja's cabin produces fruit for the first time in eight years. Both of them are fucking confused. Any blooms that were on the tree died with the last frost of the winter, and none have come since. It doesn't make any sense. Ren comes outside one morning and sees the fruit already beginning to grow on two trees, which in fact they'd thought the particular trees were dead. Sarja shakes her head, deems that the apples will probably be no good.

When the apples are ripe, Ren picks two from high up and her and Sarja each have one. They're sweet, have a good crunch. Prefect for baking, too. Sarja eats her words, quite literally, but her words taste damn good. She gets to have first pick of the crop when Ren decides it's time to harvest them.

It's just as tedious as chopping wood, in some ways. Climbing and picking isn't fun, especially knowing that every apple she drops and bruises is money out of their pockets, but wasps are a problem too. She gets stung more times than she can count over a period of a week. Good fucking thing she isn't allergic at least. She keeps a small pouch of dried tobacco on her hip, chews it when she gets stung and pastes it onto the wound to draw out the venom. It soothes the stings enough to convince her to finish working and not give up. 

With the harvest mostly finished, Ren rents a wagon, gets ahold of some crates, and takes her apples to the market bright and early. When word gets out of how damn good they are, she sells out within three days. She makes a pretty penny off of it. Certainly enough to do some repairs around their home, get Sarja another blanket for when the next cold season hits. She hides a bit of the earnings while she remembers, and takes some measurements to the best tailor in town. Sarja should look good in baby blue silk, if she can tolerate the texture on her skin.

The blanket is easy enough to get ahold of, and gets tucked away until it's needed again. Repairs to the cabin mostly fall on Ren, because Sarja doesn't like to be outside naked. Inside their home is mostly fine, just needs a good scrub. Outside has seen better days. But Ren fixes up the roof, completely rebuilds the small stable where the horse spends most of her time. The outhouse door, the broken piece of shit, gets replaced in it's entirety, hinges and all. It's hard labor. Sweat constantly dripping into her eyes, bugs buzzing around her head. Sarja has a hot bath waiting for her every evening, though, feeds her dinner after she's dried off and even gives Ren a massage every now and then. It makes the work bearable. 

There's still plenty more to do. The wood around the windows is beginning to rot, and the curtains are moth eaten and one of the two of them needs to sew a new set. The hinges of the front door squeak badly and either need to be oiled or replaced all together. Their dinner table is rickety and close to falling apart. However, the heat of the summer gets to be too much for Ren, so her and Sarja decide to put off the rest until fall shuffles in within the next couple months.

Thankfully, their money doesn't run out. They tuck a large amount of coin and away in case of any bad luck or financial emergency. Ren goes back to doing odd jobs, just to keep the money flowing, but most of it is stashed away. They'll need to move soon, if Ren can convince Sarja. Staying too much longer might be dangerous. But for now, they're content where they are.

 

 

Early in the morning, just as summer is on the cusp of blooming, Ren hears the sound of horses approaching.

She knows. Sarja watches her nervously as Ren rolls out of bed, pulls on a dress and tries to brush her hair. It doesn't escape Sarja's notice as Ren secures her sword to her side like an old friend. All the while, the horses come closer and closer still, until they're too close and then quiet.

A voice she recognizes says something about the horse. Ren assumes they mean _her_ horse, the one she should have traded out long ago for another, less identifiable one. Ren motions for Sarja to stay quiet, and they wait. A few voices that Ren knows converse, but she can't make out what any of the words are.

The knock at the door comes loud, hard. Heavy, from a man's fist. It's Leo's voice that sternly calls out "Renee".

She considers hiding and having Sarja answer. Deny Ren being there, or ever having seen her. But it wouldn't work. He'd smell Ren all over Sarja's body the moment she answered, they'd just been tangled together half an hour earlier.

He knocks again, more deliberate, and calls her name once more.

Ren tries to be silent as she backs Sarja into a darkened corner of their house. As soft as she can, hoping Leo can't hear, she tells Sarja to stay quiet and out of sight. Certainly not to interfere. She'll be safe if Leo doesn't see her.

Leo doesn't look a bit different when Ren wrenches the door open. Hair neatly tied back, clothes immaculate even though he's been on a horse for fuck knows how long. He looks her over, taking in her thinner body and muscle-swollen arms. Ren has to refrain from curling her lip back too far, tries to turn the resentment down a little bit. It won't do to spark his ire right off the bat. Behind him, five of his closest companions wait with their horses, all looking discomforted.

"What the fuck do you want?" she asks, barely keeping the door open enough to be visible.

"I've come to take you home."

Ren presses her lips tight, pulls back some and looks around her home. Sarja's face is confused, conflicted too, but Ren doesn't let her glance linger. "This is my house, and I live in it. So it looks like I _am_ home."

Face unchanging from its flat look, he tells her, "You're well aware of what I mean. It's time for you to come back home, Renee. With me."

"Leo, if I wanted to be with you, don't you think I'd be there?" Ren questions, crossing her arms and leaning on the frame. She keeps the door held mostly closed with her foot. "Home isn't with you. My home is here, now. I'm happy _here_. I've got my own house, a steady job, plenty of nice, normal friends."

It's a lie. The house belongs to Sarja, no steady paying job to speak of, and everybody in town barely tolerates her for being in a lesbian relationship. But Leo doesn't need to fucking know that.

He closes his eyes, exhales slowly. "I'm not in the mood to do this, Renee." Leo's eyes open back up, and she can see the faintest glare from him. "Come." 

"No."

Abruptly, Leo grabs one of her arms and pulls her outside. The door and frame scrape up her arms, and a nail snags on her dress, tearing a small hole in it. She stumbles but stays on her feet, shakes his hand off with a snarl. Leo starts to say something, but Ren shoves him hard in the solar plexus. It knocks him off balance. Buys her some time.

He staggers back one step, catches himself on the second. "I'm not asking anymore. _Let's go,_ " Leo hisses, his lip curling and showing off his shark teeth.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Ren spits, getting her hand on the hilt of her sword. She's got no illusion that she could win against him, but she's not going back with him. Dying would be preferable.

Behind the both of them, the door squeaks open wider. Sarja's warm brown skin glows bronze in the morning light as she steps out, looking like five feet of naked fury. She crosses her arms under her breasts, glares up at Leo and tells him " _She isn't going anywhere._ "

Leo scoffs, looks to Ren. "Thought I smelled someone on you. Who the fuck is this?"

" _Her wife._ "

He narrows his eyes, and switches from the common tongue to their native language. " _That's funny. Last I checked, not only can women not marry each other, she's married to me._ "

Leo's companions seem to be getting antsy upon hearing Leo and Sarja converse in the language native to all of them. Ren's sure none of them faulted them her for leaving, but they're faithful to him, not her. If they're here to get her, they won't hesitate to help him. Sarja only seem to be a minor annoyance in this plan.

Sarja laughs, loud and malicious. " _No, she's was married to a man named Leo. Not this cunt standing in front of me who beat her face black and blue and drove her away._ "

His face doesn't change, and that's what scares Ren the most. Without any hesitation, he steps past Ren, draws the short sword on his hip, and runs Sarja through. It happens so fast that Ren doesn't even register it's happened until Sarja is on her back in the dust, leaking blood from her belly.

"Sarja!"

Ren elbows him in the solar plexus, staggering him once again. She kneels on the ground, with panic gripping her chest as she watches the light go out in Sarja's eyes, blood bubbling from her lips. Ren's hands look so white against Sarja's body, who's already beginning to go pale. No matter where she touches, she can barely feel a heartbeat.

"No, no! Sarja, _no_."

The wound in Sarja's abdomen begins to heal over, and Ren already feels weaker. Her vision blurs over with tears, because Sarja isn't gaining any color back even though the wound is sealed shut and Ren can't sense anymore damage. Under Ren's palms, she still can't feel Sarja breathing, and her heartbeat is hardly more than a flutter. She kisses at Sarja's face.

"Leo...," she hears one of his companions say, hesitance clear in his voice. He doesn't say anything else, and Leo doesn't reply.

Ren buries her face against Sarja's neck and cries. Through her tears, she whispers that it's time to move, they need to go. If Ren's forced to leave, Sarja needs to move into the city and wait for her. She'll come back for her, Ren promises.

But still, Sarja is motionless under her.

After a few more moments, a pair of hands grab her under her armpits and pull her to her feet. Leo guides her to where the others are, manhandles her onto his horse and climbs up behind her.

"What about her horse?" his best friend asks, looking past them to the stables. Ren's never much liked her, but the woman has a look of pity.

"Leave it. It'll survive," Leo says, curling one arm around Ren's waist to keep her in place.

Her things are still inside. Some of her most treasured possessions. She whimpers his name, tries to get down to at least retrieve them. He holds her where she is, firm enough to bruise. Fuck, her baby's blanket is still in there. It's the only thing she has of his.

That, of all things, is what makes her break into hysterics.

 

 

It takes another year for her to get away. Most of that year is a blur, spent biding her time. There's little else she can do. Any and all letters she tries to send are intercepted and read first, so she can't contact her right-hand-man, Gaetan, and have him retrieve her under the guise of needing her to lead her army again. 

She cries over Sarja a lot, in the beginning. Her grief doesn't run out, but eventually she can't force herself to mourn anymore. Her eyes ache from the constant crying. The weight that she worked so hard to lose comes back when she starts eating her feelings and her muscles begin losing definition from a lack of use.

The year is agonizing. She feels like a prisoner. A prisoner who isn't locked in a dungeon, gets three hot meals a day, has free roam of the grounds, but a prisoner nonetheless. Ren wants to get out of here so bad, but she's scared of Leo by this point. He's proved himself to be ruthless, volatile, and might actually get to the point of just flat out killing her if she pushes him too far. 

Leo, when he isn't gone on his mercenary work, tries to be kind. He tries to make pleasantries with her as if he hasn't hurt her, as if he didn't kill someone she loved right in front of her face. Even after all this time and everything he's done, he still gets surprised when she refused to share a room with him, spits at him when he asks to make love to her. As if she could ever bear to let those unkind hands ever touch her body again.

His temperament starts to shift back to something she's familiar with, but there's too many years of damage for her to even begin thinking of reconciling with him. She doesn't ever want him back, not even as a friend. So she plans and plans for her escape, even though most of them are fruitless. 

She runs out of plans eventually. Runs out of fucks to give, too. She's forbidden from the horses, but none of the stable hands dare to stop her from saddling one up. One runs off to get Leo as they've probably been instructed to do, and he appears as she's getting ready to ride out.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks, and sound so much like a stern father that it makes her want to laugh. But she doesn't have the energy to expend that emotion, especially towards him, so she merely kicks at his hand when he reaches for her ankle.

"To kill a king," she answers back, and rides off before he can reply. He doesn't follow or send anyone after her, at least.

She doesn't make a liar out of herself. She meets with Gaetan, lets him brief her on everything that's happened since she's been gone. He lets her take back up the leadership role, and after a lot of hashing out plans and details, they attack.

The king, and the two before him, were all bastards. Ren herself isn't innocent of being a bigot, but this line of family are worse. Nonhumans are treated like shit on the heels of their boots. Mages and magic users are routinely rounded up and executed. Ren remembers what this king's grandfather did to her family, remembers watching her parents die to his army when she was a child. She's been fighting against this family since she was 30, and she's well over 200 now. It's time to end their reign of tyranny, once and for all.

It's a bloodbath, as it should be. Confident that it's taken her so long just to get here, the king himself shows up to do battle. He's cocky and careless, and watching the surprise on his face as he's spattered with his own blood makes Ren grin like a feral beast.

Ren's in full plate, holding the king's severed head above herself. She can barely hear herself shouting "The King is dead!" over the jovial roar of her men.

By the end of the day, she's crowned herself Empress.

Afterward, it's several long months of getting her affairs in order. Gaetan, ever faithful, handles a lot of it for her behind the scenes. He's even kind enough to personally retrieve her things from Leo so that she doesn't have to face him.

Things _are_ eventually in order, and she readies for a trip. As usual, Gaetan sits in her place, because she trusts his judgement and frankly, being a stand-in for the Empress is an easier job than she has him doing before. She should give him another raise.

 

 

It's nearing winter when she reaches the north. The snow hasn't started to fall yet, but the sky is gray and heavy with the precipitation threatening to fall. She changes and leaves the guard detail outside of the city, to keep her presence low. A handsewn dress, her hair down and the curls untamed. The town's citizens don't recognize her as the Empress, not yet. Just the lesbian who lived here a little over two years ago and then disappeared.

After asking around, it's clear none of them have seen Sarja. No one really travels out that way, either. She thanks them, though the information is mostly useless. As an after thought, Ren checks in with the tailor and asks about the silk gown she'd commissioned so long ago. Miraculously, she still has it. It's too expensive for most to afford, and custom made to fit a specific body. It was useless to try to sell it to anyone else. She tips the woman nicely for hanging onto it, and starts the hour long trek into the woods.

The cabin looks a little more weathered but is still nicely in tact. Her horse is still hanging out in the stable, looking healthy as could be and happy to see Ren. She obliges in petting her old mare, but stops after a bit. There's more important reasons that she's here.

Out front is clear and empty. No remains, no bones of any sort. Nothing hanging on the drying line, no smoke coming from the chimney though it's cold enough to need a fire going. It looks abandoned. Ren knocks anyways.

There's no answer. She waits, quiet, patient. From the corner of her right eye, she watches the curtains shift in just the slightest. Someone's in there, at least. Ren knocks again, waits politely. Whoever is in there is giving her that baby blanket, and she'll wait here all night to get it if she has to.

The lock turns, and she hears the bolt at the top of the door being undone. A long pause later, the door squeals open. Hinges still haven't been oiled, then.

Sarja's face is clear with hesitance until she registers what exactly she's looking at. Her expression shifts through a series of emotions at the sight of Ren, though it's mostly shock. Ren herself feels tears pricking at her eyes, relief soothing the anxiety in her chest that she didn't even know was there. Sarja's _alive_. Soon enough, she's staggering back with two armfuls of warm body, a mouth peppering her face with kisses, two knees squeezing either side of her hips.

It's much like an adult version of a storybook ending. They kiss, they cry, they fuck. They fuck for about an hour straight, honestly, until neither of them can feel their lips and they're both messes of pleasure. There's also a lot more tears, many apologies, Ren's hands smoothing over the long tan scar on Sarja's abdomen.

Ren fills Sarja's in on what's happened since that terrible day while wrapped with her in a blanket. The long year spent plotting an escape, the months of battle, the thrilling bloodbath where she slaughtered the king. She doesn't skip anything.

"I've crowned myself Empress," Ren tells Sarja softly kissing her shoulder and keeping a hand on her hip. "I'm ruler of the entire continent now."

" _Doesn't "empress" require you have an empire_?" Sarja asks, brow quirked. She pushes one of her legs between Ren's, and presses her face into Ren's shoulder.

"This continent _is_ an empire. Those idiot kings didn't know how to utilize what they had and have destroyed so much. But I can build a true empire out of it now, rebuild the shambles of this continent and even expand our to others. I can unite the countries of this continent and we can prosper." Ren sits up on her elbow and kisses the top of Sarja's head. 

They sit together like that for a long time, soaking in each other's warmth and just enjoying being together again. 

"You'll do this with me, won't you?" Ren asks softly, waiting until Sarja sits up and looks at her to continue. "You'll be by my side though all of this?"

Sarja cocks her head slowly, seeming to not understand. " _You've already won the battle. What more is there to do_?"

"I'm the Empress, remember? The wife of an emperor is called the empress consort. I imagine the wife of an empress would be called the same thing."

Still, the confused look doesn't leave Sarja's face. Ren leans in, kisses her slow. "I want you to come back with me," she explains, sliding a hand up to caress Sarja's cheek. "I want to rule this place, and I want you by my side while it happens. This is something I want to share with you. And who's to tell me I can't? I'm the fucking Empress, if I want to be married to a woman, then I'm married to a woman."

The silence between them that follows isn't tense. It's a lot to drop on someone all at once, and Ren is patient while she waits for Sarja to think about an answer.

Eventually, Sarja nods. She looks a little dazed, but sounds sure when she says " _Okay_."

Ren kisses her again, just because she can, before getting out of bed. She crosses the room, shivering against the cold of Sarja's home while she takes the silk gown out of her bag.

"Here. I know you can't stand most fabric, but I wanted to see if this would be an exception." Ren sits on the edge of the bed, offers out the gown.

Hesitantly, Sarja reaches out and takes some of it into her hand and rubs it between her fingers. When the texture doesn't immediately make her want to vomit, she accepts the thin dress and feels it with both hands. She's never had enough money to every be around such a luxurious kind of fabric, let alone touch any, and she's surprised that it isn't bothering her like most kinds of cloth.

She's slips it on after a moment, and waits for the disgusted feeling that clothing leaves her with. But the feeling doesn't come. The silk is cool against her body, falling down to her ankles when she stands. It doesn't keep her warm in the slightest, but she likes how airy it is. Sarja's looks down, examining the light baby blue that clings to every inch of her body, leaving nothing to the imagination.

"I'll dress you in silk every day of your life, if you'll let me. Every shade you could want, I'll even shell out a fortune if you want everything done in violet." Ren stands once again and beings pulling her clothing back on. "But you're certain you want to come back with me?"

" _I do_ ," Sarja agrees, smoothing her hands down her sides. The silk feels like magic.

"Gather you things then, my love. My guard detail is probably getting antsy that I've been gone for so long."

Ren kneels down in front of the dresser, the stone flooring hard on her knees. In the bottom drawer sits the keepsakes she was forced to leave behind. The soft pink handfasting ribbon, that signified an unnecessary marriage to a man she was certain she'd spend the rest of her life with. His dead wife's favorite necklace, still pretty and pristine, the stones still shiny after hundreds of years of poor care. And her son's blanket, which smells like it's been washed recently, instead of sitting in a musty drawer for over two years.

She packs all of them into her bag, and turns to her wife. Sarja is quiet, her hands empty.

" _There's nothing in here I think is worth taking_ ," she says honestly, looking around the little cabin again, just in case. But she's certain there's nothing here she wants. Her blankets are easily replaceable, she's got no clothing other than the silk gown clinging to her frame. She's got no sentimental ties to anything in here, really. All that's left to do is put on her boots, if they're going.

Ren paces through the little house, which seems so tiny to her now, and pulls Sarja's small body against her own. They kiss, deep and long, sharing heat in the cold stone cabin.

"May I take you home, now?" Ren asks, gently stroking the messy black hair from the others face.

Sarja smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> BOY HOWDY THAT ABUSE WAS ROUGH TO WRITE.
> 
> If you catch any glaring mistakes, feel free to let me know. My auto correct is a dick and I don't always catch everything.
> 
> I'm always very appreciative of your comments and kudos, so don't be shy about leaving either of those!
> 
> I have [my blog](http://iwillpooponthefloor.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you'd like to check that out.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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